254 ON CONGRUITY IN LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
us in determining our appreciation of an object, the more clearly do we find men 
agreeing to reject and denounce all that is inharmonious, and to demand the last 
possible perfection of accordance in every part of whatever subject is presented for 
their examination. It is thus that men look, in nature, for something like unity of 
character ; and, so far from harsh and abrupt contrasts being most agreeable, the 
harmonious in outline, arrangement, and colouring, attracts most firmly and durably. 
It maybe, however, that an objection will here arise in the mind of some readers, 
from considering that rugged and thorough transitions in a natural landscape are 
most arresting, and rivet the attention and excite the interest of an observer more 
surely than would be done by a quieter and more regular scene. The eye, in passing 
over a district will at once be brought to a stop by such features, and the most 
careless traveller will have his attention caught. But in this, as in many other 
matters, a most important rule will apply. It is not what brings the indifferent to 
a momentary pause, or startles the man of taste, that is to be regarded as conform- 
ing best to the constitution of the human mind. It is rather the prospect or the 
thing on which he who has cultivated his mind and his taste most completely can 
rest with complacency, or which he can contemplate with expanding delight, or revel 
in with unabating pleasure, that is to be considered most harmonious with the nature 
of man. And hence arises a practical axiom, which is weighty enough to allow of 
its introduction here, that we ought to strive after the attainment of that excellence 
which is sure to satisfy men of refinement and ability, resting assured that the mul- 
titude who are less competent because less educated and informed, will, by frequent 
gazing, also become admirers. 
If, then, as we have shown, men seek, by a kind of uniform habit which amounts 
almost to an instinct, for a tolerable degree of concord in the parts of whatever is 
offered to their inspection ; and if we see them — as we assuredly shall see them — 
expecting and requiring a higher amount of such concord in proportion as the thing 
examined passes farther from the mental and the ethical, and becomes more 
exclusively material ; and if, further, in proof of the last position, we observe them 
to be most pleased with the natural landscape that is harmonious without being 
monotonous, and well connected together at the same time that it is sufficiently varied 
— we shall naturally assume that they will be even more rigid in applying this law to 
works of art. And our assumption will speedily be found true. 
What we have said is correct in its application to painting, sculpture, archi- 
tecture, and all the imitative and decorative arts. A thing of which any portion 
does not agree with all the rest — in which one style is not maintained throughout, 
which has not one expression — will, unless it be so far disjointed as only to be taken 
in by the senses at comparatively distant intervals, always be regarded as defective 
in the degree to which it departs from either of these characteristics. 
Landscape gardening is embraced, still more emphatically, in the same rule, 
because, while it professes to copy nature in its general principles and arrangements, 
and thus comes within the expectation of congruity which men entertain towards 
